Posted: 3/8/2003 1:26:37 PM EDT
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[url]http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/news/local/5346062.htm[/url] Posted on Sat, Mar. 08, 2003 Man critically hurt while making explosive ASSOCIATED PRESS HARTFORD, Wis. - Authorities found 15 explosive devices and a substantial amount of bomb-making material in an apartment after a man severely injured himself when a device he was making accidentally exploded. A former neighbor told an interviewer the man has made pyrotechnic devices for musical shows. Police and agents for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said the 33-year-old man was severely injured around 6:15 p.m. Thursday when the device he was making at his kitchen table somehow ignited. About 40 of his neighbors were evacuated from the area after federal and local officials said they found further evidence of explosives. Hartford Police Chief Thomas Jones said the ATF found 15 more explosive devices in boxes they had taken from the apartment. He said the devices were of various shapes and sizes, and there was evidence the man had prices listed for the devices. The man was taken to Aurora Medical Center in Hartford, then airlifted to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in the Milwaukee area, where he was being treated in the intensive care unit. The man has undergone almost 16 hours of surgery to reconstruct his hands, said Hartford Deputy Fire Chief Paul Stephans. His name was not released pending an investigation, but hospital officials said he was in critical condition Friday. A second man who apparently tried to help the injured man was also taken to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, Stephans said. A one-square-block area of multifamily apartment buildings was evacuated. Residents were not allowed to return until about 2 a.m. Friday. James Ramstack, a former neighbor who lived below the man, said he used pyrotechnics to make flash and bang sounds for musical shows. "He showed us how to make fireworks before. I never knew he had all that explosive stuff, though," Ramstack told WTMJ-TV. The blast damaged the walls and ceiling of the apartment and blew out the living room windows, Stephans said. Authorities who executed a search warrant at the man's apartment, basement storage area and garage said they found other materials that can be used to make explosives. "We found a large quantity of explosive material and chemical compounds, including oxidizers used to bring oxygen into explosives and fuels for explosives," Chief Jones said. "I'm not a bomb expert by any means, but we were very, very lucky last night." The Milwaukee County bomb squad handled what was believed to be a live explosive device that was also found during the search, Jones said. |
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'Making explosives' sounds so much more 'dramatic' as a headline than 'making pyrotechnics'-which is obviously what he was doing. Both F troop and the local EOD types get their 15 minutes of fame and enhance their funding. Too bad about the 'on job injury' -which is all it is. Course, this being the fascist states of amerika, they'll charge him with a laundry list of 'offenses'. Ghost |